“He must draw something more than their teeth,” I said, “to keep up all that show.” My neighbour grinned assent. “He’ve drawed pretty nigh all the loose money as is going hereabouts already,” he said as we parted. “One more quack to fleece the poor,” I thought, as I walked on. “Well, anyhow, they get a show for their shillings; that van beats Barnum!” In this mind I reached the vicarage of one of our biggest city parishes to which I was bound. “I don’t know about quack,” said the vicar, when I had detailed my adventure on the way, using that disparaging phrase; “but this I do know, that I have given over writing certificates for my poor from downright shame, the demand is so great.” And then he explained that the “medicineman,” whose stage name was Sequah, made no charge to any patient who brought a clergyman’s certificate of poverty; that the van had now been in the town above a week; and at first he, the vicar, had given such certificates freely, both for treatment (tooth-drawing) and for the medicines, but now refused except in the case of the very poorest. No! not because Sequah was an impostor; on the contrary, he had done several noteworthy cures--at any rate temporary cures--on some of the vicar’s own parishioners: notably in the case of one old man who had been drawn up to the van in a wheel-chair. He had had rheumatism for two years, which had quite disabled him, and was in great pain when he got on the platform. After he had been treated he walked down the steps without help, and wheeled his chair home himself. Unluckily, Sequah had advised him to get warm woollen underclothing, and on his pleading that he had not the money to buy it, had given him a sovereign. This so elated him that he felt quite a new man, and could not help breaking his sovereign on the way home to give the new man a congratulatory glass at a favourite pot-house. This had thrown him back, and his knees were a little stiff again, but the pain had not returned even in this case.